# White folks and alcholism **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [July 9, 2018, 11:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-folks-and-alcholism/817620 "2018-07-09T23:25:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![madsircool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madsircool/32/3432_2.png) [@madsircool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madsircool)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2018, 2:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-folks-and-alcholism/817620/21 "2018-07-10T02:42:09Z")
> [@Huey\_Freeman](#): > > You’re free to email the author, Dr. Dawei Li, with your thoughts. His publicly accessible email is dawei.li@uvm.edu. Let us know what he says. > > In any case, I regret making this thread. I realize now that this topic is way, way, way above the paygrade of the posters here. Thanks to DSeid for his analysis. I appreciate it. A moderator has permission to close the thread. I thought there was a large contingent of scientists here. My mistake. Thanks. A history of beer in Europe. It has been brewed for more than a few hundred years. > **[The Barbarian's Beverage](https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Barbarian_s_Beverage.html?id=NR5LeH291i0C&hl=en)** > > Comprehensive and detailed, this is the first ever study of ancient beer and its distilling, consumption and characteristics Examining evidence from Greek and Latin authors from 700 BC to AD 900, the book demonstrates the important technological as... ---
**Author:** ![Grey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b782af/32.png) [@Grey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grey)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2018, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-folks-and-alcholism/817620/22 "2018-07-10T02:44:02Z")
Just for the record the linked article’s abstract mentions the study used archived data related to those of “European ancestors”. So you can’t draw any conclusions across “races” anyway. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2018, 2:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-folks-and-alcholism/817620/23 "2018-07-10T02:48:36Z")
**Huey** if you want to make racial comparisons [here](https://pubs.niaaa.nih.gov/publications/arh40/152-160.htm) is some data. > [@](#): > > Native Americans have the highest prevalence (12.1 percent) of heavy drinking (i.e., five or more drinks on the same occasion for 5 or more of the past 30 days; followed by Whites (8.3 percent) and Hispanics (6.1 percent). A larger percentage of Native Americans (29.6 percent) also are binge drinkers, with somewhat lower percentages for Whites (25.9 percent), Hispanics (25.6 percent), and Blacks (21.4 percent). Relative to other ethnic groups, the proportion of Asian Americans (2.7 percent) and Blacks (4.7 percent) who are heavy drinkers and Asian Americans (13.3 percent) who are binge drinkers is low. The issue is always that there are big sociocultural differences that likely trump any issues of biological predisposition in dealing with these sorts of statistics. The simple correlation approach is the tactic of the so called “scientific racists” and sharing that space with them is not I think where you aim to sit. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2018, 2:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-folks-and-alcholism/817620/24 "2018-07-10T02:51:47Z")
> [@Huey\_Freeman](#): > > In any case, I regret making this thread. I realize now that this topic is way, way, way above the paygrade of the posters here. Thanks to DSeid for his analysis. I appreciate it. A moderator has permission to close the thread. I thought there was a large contingent of scientists here. My mistake. Thanks. So you’d like to throw out an accusation against an entire race. Throw the author of the article you linked to under the bus rather than defend your own thread. Then say that people here are not intelligent enough to understand the topic. And now you’d like to close down the thread so there’s no rebuttal. You have a skewed view of how debate works. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2018, 2:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-folks-and-alcholism/817620/25 "2018-07-10T02:56:12Z")
Wasn’t the violence during Prohibition largely driven by the Italian mafia? Not a ton of blue eyes there… ---
**Author:** ![zoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zoid/32/336_2.png) [@zoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zoid)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2018, 3:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-folks-and-alcholism/817620/26 "2018-07-10T03:00:04Z")
I’m still trying to understand what poor Harriet Tubman did to get pulled into this… > [@Huey\_Freeman](#): > > Harriet Tubman didn’t do what Al Capone did (and slavery was much, much worse than prohibition). ---
**Author:** ![Huey\_Freeman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/huey_freeman/32/251_2.png) [@Huey\_Freeman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Huey_Freeman)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2018, 3:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-folks-and-alcholism/817620/27 "2018-07-10T03:02:59Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > So you’d like to throw out an accusation against an entire race. Then say that people here are not intelligent enough to understand the topic. And now you’d like to close down the thread so there’s no rebuttal. > > You have a skewed view of how debate works. Nah, bruh. I was expecting someone with a science background to talk about GABA receptors, to talk about the pigments in the eye, to talk about how these could be related, to talk about how, if anything, can alcohol interact with any of these things. I had hoped that someone could read the article (I do not have access) and fight my ignorance. The only person who kind of scratched the surface was **DSeid**. I agree with the poster that this is preliminary work. You (and others) are free to rebut all you like. I’ll read your views, consider them, but unless you’re going to give me some science, I’m not gonna respond. Thanks. ---
**Author:** ![Huey\_Freeman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/huey_freeman/32/251_2.png) [@Huey\_Freeman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Huey_Freeman)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2018, 3:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-folks-and-alcholism/817620/28 "2018-07-10T03:04:06Z")
> [@zoid](#): > > I’m still trying to understand what poor Harriet Tubman did to get pulled into this… Then you’ll be “trying to understand” until the end of time. If you don’t get it now, you wouldn’t get it if I explained it to you. I’m not going to bother explaining it to you. Thanks. ---
**Author:** ![Huey\_Freeman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/huey_freeman/32/251_2.png) [@Huey\_Freeman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Huey_Freeman)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2018, 3:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-folks-and-alcholism/817620/29 "2018-07-10T03:06:41Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > Wasn’t the violence during Prohibition largely driven by the Italian mafia? Not a ton of blue eyes there… This is true but who did the mafia sell alcohol to? Themselves? ---
**Author:** ![D\_Anconia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/67e7ee/32.png) [@D\_Anconia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/D_Anconia)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2018, 3:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-folks-and-alcholism/817620/30 "2018-07-10T03:15:58Z")
> [@Huey\_Freeman](#): > > A moderator has permission to close the thread. The moderators don’t need your permission to do anything. ---
**Author:** ![Huey\_Freeman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/huey_freeman/32/251_2.png) [@Huey\_Freeman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Huey_Freeman)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2018, 3:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-folks-and-alcholism/817620/31 "2018-07-10T03:30:19Z")
> [@D\_Anconia](#): > > The moderators don’t need your permission to do anything. Nevermind. Not worth it. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2018, 3:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-folks-and-alcholism/817620/32 "2018-07-10T03:30:55Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > There’s this stuff called wine? Made from grapes? Europeans have been drinking it since about 4500 BCE. Yeah, but that’s fermented, not distilled. Distillation allows a concentration of alcohol that can’t be achieved by fermentation. There’s a reason why prohibitionists railed against demon rum, not demon lager. That said, I’m having some trouble following along, possibly due to the multiple gimlets I’ve drunk, with my brown eyes and red hair. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2018, 3:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-folks-and-alcholism/817620/33 "2018-07-10T03:40:25Z")
Huey, may I (a non-white person) ask why 70% of all your posts or so are about white people? Any reason for this obsession? ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2018, 4:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-folks-and-alcholism/817620/34 "2018-07-10T04:07:52Z")
> [@Huey\_Freeman](#): > > Then you’ll be “trying to understand” until the end of time. If you don’t get it now, you wouldn’t get it if I explained it to you. I’m not going to bother explaining it to you. Thanks. “I could explain it to you, but you are not smart enough/worthy enough to understand, so I’m not going to bother” is a great way to drive people away. ---
**Author:** ![K2500](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/f6c823/32.png) [@K2500](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/K2500)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2018, 4:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-folks-and-alcholism/817620/35 "2018-07-10T04:13:06Z")
> [@Huey\_Freeman](#): > > This is true but who did the mafia sell alcohol to? Themselves? Probably to white people. Most probably to racist white people. Bet a lot of them had light eyes too. Then they passed down those racist, light eyed alcoholic genes in order to continue their control over over the Wisconsin state legislature. It all makes sense to me now. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2018, 4:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-folks-and-alcholism/817620/36 "2018-07-10T04:26:07Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > Yeah, but that’s fermented, not distilled. Distillation allows a concentration of alcohol that can’t be achieved by fermentation. There’s a reason why prohibitionists railed against demon rum, not demon lager. Sure, but they were teaching classes in distillation in Italian medical schools in 1200 CE, so it’s still not a great argument. ---
**Author:** ![I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/i_love_me_vol.i/32/521_2.png) [@I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/I_Love_Me_Vol.I)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2018, 4:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-folks-and-alcholism/817620/37 "2018-07-10T04:38:08Z")
> [@CarnalK](#): > > Not that many people have blue eyes. I bet there’s more black americans than blue eyed americans. Do you count blue-eyed black folk in both categories? ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2018, 4:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-folks-and-alcholism/817620/38 "2018-07-10T04:49:07Z")
> [@CarnalK](#): > > Not that many people have blue eyes. I bet there’s more black americans than blue eyed americans. There’s about 246,000,000 white people in America. About one in three have blue eyes, which is about 82,000,000. There’s about 75,000,000 African Americans. So, not quite. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2018, 4:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-folks-and-alcholism/817620/39 "2018-07-10T04:49:54Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > Sure, but they were teaching classes in distillation in Italian medical schools in 1200 CE, so it’s still not a great argument. I think that widespread consumption of distilled spirits is only a few centuries old. [Here’s some cool history](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/2000-years-of-binge-drinking-516009.html): > [@](#): > > But wine could not withstand the onslaught of gin. The Navigation Act of 1651 dictated that European vessels were only allowed to import goods from their own nations into England. Since most ships in those days were Dutch this dealt a severe blow to the French wine trade. Gin was invented in Holland around 1650 by distilling grain with juniper berries. It was cheap and the supply was fed by laws in 1690 to encourage the distillation and sale of spirits to increase incomes of the landed aristocracy. It was around this time Scotland and Ireland were developing reputations for whiskies. What flooded the market was the spirit that led to the Gin Epidemic. When the law was passed gin production stood at a million gallons a year. Within seven years the English population, of less than seven million, was drinking an annual 18 million gallons. > > The epidemic lasted 30 years. “Drunk for one penny, dead drunk for two,” the adverts said. Pharmacists sold it to women to “soothe the nerves”; it became known as Mother’s Ruin. In 1736 Parliament tried passing a law taxing gin and prohibiting its sale in quantities of less than two gallons. There were riots, and production of gin continued to rise. > > Eventually gin consumption waned as beer became better and cheaper, and tea and coffee became available. But in the industrial revolution factories needed a reliable work force. Drunkenness became a threat to industrial efficiency. As towns grew rapidly around factories problems such as urban crime, poverty and high infant mortality increased. Gross overcrowding was the root cause but alcohol took a lot of the blame. ---
**Author:** ![Tamerlane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tamerlane/32/7602_2.png) [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2018, 4:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-folks-and-alcholism/817620/40 "2018-07-10T04:53:34Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > Yeah, but that’s fermented, not distilled. Distillation allows a concentration of alcohol that can’t be achieved by fermentation. There’s a reason why prohibitionists railed against demon rum, not demon lager. Yes, the OP is actually quite correct that grain distillation is relatively recent - more several hundred years than a few hundred, but close enough. However I don’t think that strength of spirits is necessarily all that relevant in terms of intoxication and violence. Alexander the Great did just fine as a homicidal maniac( literally killing his own officers in a drunken rage )with primarily wine at his disposal. So did a billion other ancient alcoholics - the Middle Ages was practically a primer on why drunken teenagers shouldn’t be in charge of anything. Spirits just allows you to get drunk quicker. A genetic predisposition of blue-eyed people to alcoholism would be interesting, and certainly alcohol as a disinhibitor is responsible for amplifying all sorts of stupid behavior. However any impact on racist violence would have to be pretty infinitesimal statistically. If it were a real impact the OP should rejoice 🙂 - the proportion of blue-eyed caucasians born in the United States has been dropping steadily for decades. From ~57% in 1900 to ~17% in 2002. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-folks-and-alcholism/817620.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-folks-and-alcholism/817620.md?page=3)